The Effect of Mutual Eye Contact Salience on Cooperation and Coordination in Virtual Teams

Initial interactions are crucial for establishing collaboration in virtual teams; however, virtual environments often lack the non-verbal cues necessary to mitigate strategic uncertainty. We examine whether making mutual eye contact salient and observable during an initial video meeting can improve subsequent coordination and cooperation in three-person virtual teams. Using state-of-the-art eye-tracking technology and a novel gaze-adaptive video meeting system, we conduct a preregistered lab experiment where teams engage in non-game-related pre-play communication before a Weakest-Link Game. Eye-tracking data reveal that the amount of mutual gaze exchanged in treatments with or without the gaze-adaptive technology did not differ. Thus, making eye contact salient did not alter gaze patterns. However, salience significantly increased minimum effort in the first round, which is a measure of cooperation in the sense of selecting a more Pareto-efficient equilibrium, before any performance feedback is available. The treatment did not significantly influence wasted effort, our measure of the team's coordination. The treatment's effect on cooperation weakened as rounds progressed, and participants began responding to realized performance rather than initial social signals. Exploratory mediation analyses (2SLS, SEM) are consistent with the treatment operating through increased interpersonal trust and higher beliefs about teammates' contributions. Our findings suggest that a low-cost, non-verbal salience cue can help newly formed virtual teams avoid low-effort coordination traps at the outset of collaboration.